There is one thing that most business owners find hard to manage, and that is online reviews.
We have come across many companies who have had both positive and negative reviews left online and have struggled to get the response required just right.
To help you all we have listed below what we recommend for handling of online review.
Handling Positive Reviews
Its very easy to assume that you only need to manage negative or fake reviews left about your business but this isn’t the case at all.
If someone leaves a positive review about your business online, then ensure that the customer who has left that positive review leaves with an ever better experience of your company.
After all, the best promoters for your company and its offering is your customers and their word of mouth promotions to their family and friends. Their testimonial for your company is seen as more trustworthy than any other form of marketing.
Long story short, thank the customer for their positive feedback and wish them well with the product/service that they have purchased from your company. Its what you would do if they thanked you face to face, so why stop when there is a computer between you.
Don’t forget to pass on these positive reviews to other members of the team, especially if they have mentioned any particular team member and their hard work.
Handling Negative Reviews
Handling negative reviews is more difficult however, and they can hit you hard due to the personal and emotional investment you have in your company and your product/service.
Should you get a negative review the first thing to do is take a deep breath and step away from your computer.
Whatever you do, do not send an emotive response back within moments of getting the negative review. This guns blazing approach will reflect badly on you and your business.
Remember, whatever you respond with will be seen by other customers and potential customers, don’t allow them to present yourself in a bad light.
After you have taken a deep breath, and a short break from the negative review, come back to the review and write a response in pen and paper. Read through your response and even share the response with someone you trust.
However frustrated you may be by this negative review, its important that you…
- Acknowledge their experience
- Apologise to them for having the bad experience they have stated
- And inform them that this is not how you expect your customers to feel after they have purchased your product/service.
If there is anything you can do to correct their experience, then do this and tell them that you are going to do it. This action may well encourage the negative reviewer to alter their review and change their opinion of your company.
What’s really important with negative reviews is how you allow this to affect your company ongoing.
Whilst its likely that you will get negative reviews from people which cannot be helped simply due to the fact that not everyone is going to love what you do. Its important to be realistic and put your hands up if you know that their negative review could have been avoided. Perhaps its to do with a stock issue that could have been handled better. A faulty product that should have been checked before dispatch. Or perhaps poor imagery on your website which did not show the true colour or size of the product they have purchased.
These kinds of issues should be flagged up internally with your team and tasks should be set to avoid these kinds of complaints in the future.
If there has been a stock issue, review your stock management and look and what you can tweak or introduce to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. If there was a faulty product, then look at your production process and the checks in place to ensure quality. If the imagery on site doesn’t show your product in a true light, then ensure that every effort is taken to re-shoot any images in a better light with dimensions clearly shown.
Ultimately, don’t allow negative reviews to destroy your business. Instead, use them as a learning experience to improve your business ongoing.
But What if the Review is Unjustified
The only times in which a negative review is unjustified is if it’s a fake review.
The way to handle fake reviews is a whole other topic of conversation. Luckily for you, you can check out our previous blog post here on how to handle fake reviews and how to get them removed.
Reviews, Reviews, Reviews
Reviews are there to help your business. Whether they are positive, negative, or somewhere in between, if they are handled correctly they will assist your marketing and allow your business to reach new customers.
Don’t be scared of reviews, embrace them and use them as the constant feedback that they are.
Published: 26th Jan 2019